A Dangerous Mug Obsession

 During our recent move Coffee Boy insisted that I get rid of some of my enormous collection of mugs. I was horrified at the suggestion. What? Give away that 25p IKEA mug I bought for work eight years ago? No way! But on arrival at our new house I had to admit that the drinking vessel situation had got a little out of hand.

I don't know what it is but I just love mugs. Going to a gig? Why not buy a souvenir mug? Browsing in a bookshop? Hmmmnnn, mugs for £1, better get six. Visiting a German war bunker? Ooh, look they sell mugs, brilliant - let's get one. You get the idea. But the thing that's most curious about this mug obsession is that I'm actually very picky about which mugs I drink from. Firstly, the inside of the cup or mug has to be white - I like to see the colour of the tea I'm drinking. Secondly, I don't like them to be too huge - I prefer to refill my cup rather than let the tea go cold. Thirdly, I much prefer them to be made of bone china; I don't know why but tea just tastes a lot better from a thin cup. And finally, I like the cup or mug to be attractive. How then did I end up with a cupboard full of assorted drinking china when I only actually have about four mugs I like drinking from?

Anyway, answering questions about weird facets of my psyche is not why I'm here. No, I'm here to tell you about two new mugs I've bought that fit the above criteria perfectly. I have had a number of Orla Kiely mugs for a while now and let me tell you, they are wonderful. Obviously they're beautiful but they are also the perfect size and are made of bone china. For drinking black teas I have found no mug better. So when fellow blogger Katie tweeted that Orla Kiely was having an online sale recently I decided to have just a little look.

Well, typically, most of the mugs had sold out, but there were a couple of lovely ones still available and they were only £4.50 each. There was no two ways about it: I had to have them.  When they arrived yesterday I knew I'd made the right decision. A beautifully lined box with my carefully packaged mugs just got my little mug-obsessed heart going. And the mugs inside didn't disappoint either. Coffee Boy was speechless with horror and disbelief but I didn't care. They are totally worth it. The only problem is that I don't actually have any room in my mug cupboard for them. Of course, I could get rid of some of those 50p Habitat mugs we've had for about five years that I never drink out of, but that would be silly. I think the answer is much simpler than that: we'll just build a new cupboard.